


you are not real to me

by actualflower



Category: XCOM (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Mental Instability, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 08:25:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18634441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualflower/pseuds/actualflower
Summary: Days in the life of the last of XCOM's best.





	you are not real to me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Allycatsub](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allycatsub/gifts).



> my girlfriend got into XCOM and named a bunch of her squad after us + our friends; predictably, i got attached and wrote things. not meant to be placed anywhere specific in the timeline other than during XCOM 2.

i used to teach.

no, really! i was born—after, you know, after the unification. maybe. i think? or maybe i was born right around then, after we lost. but i used to teach. was really good with

it was a while ago. you know trauma changes the way the brain works? encodes memories? personality? you don’t think the same way after bad things happen.

that was weird. never mind.

but yeah! i taught robotics. advanced AI engineering. made things you wouldn’t believe. i made incredible things. had a whole lab, a bunch of friends, it was great. lots of people. students. peers. we made things—things that could feel, you know? no one believes me anymore.

no, no, don’t worry, i can see it on your face. of course you don’t believe me. why would you? there’s aliens that own everything here, and we’re the last dying vestiges of an outclassed species, and i’m here, talking about robots with feelings.

ha.

yeah, uh. aliens. when they hit, we all—we all lost something, huh? but it’s. not so bad, right?

ah. that’s... that didn’t come out right. shit. uh. ethereals. yeah. they’re. awful, right?

they stole my designs for that work—

* * *

 

She can still hear the specialist talking to themself.

It alternates from quiet chatter to loud raving, sometimes comforting, sometimes irate. Are they talking to their robot?

Valkaer snorts, drinks her cup of coffee.

Noddy wanders down the hall, gives Val half a glance. Raises his eyebrow at her sitting on the ground outside the workshop. “You good?”

“Never better,” she snarks at him blithely, and takes another, pointed sip.

“Alright,” he says, and keeps walking. He stops just before the hall turns, and he looks back to Val. There’s something soft in his gaze, concerned. “...She’s doing alright, you know. Medical knows what they’re doing.”

“I know she’ll be fine.” Valkaer looks down at her hands, sighs. “She’s my sister.”

“And she’ll appreciate you keeping an eye on crazy,” he says, smirking, and Val resists the impulse to throw her coffee at him just barely. It’s a rare commodity, nowadays. Don’t want to waste it on him.

“Get the fuck out,” she says instead, and she can hear Noddy laughing all the way down the hall. She can't quite get the smile off her face.

* * *

 

i never—i don’t remember my sisters. isn’t that awful? i had two of them. i was a middle child. i remember that. i don’t remember my sisters.

isn’t that awful?

blue has a sister. she’s here with us. val has a lot of fire. she’s real—she’s real angry at the ethereals.

i don’t—get it. all the time. sometimes. most of the time.

maybe it was ADVENT in my head all along, haha—

* * *

 

Blue wakes up to the sound of chatter in the room, the steady drip of saline, the quiet whir of a flying motor. Buzzsaw patrols the door, flying back and forth in a preset pattern. Blue lets her eyes track it for a while, tracing the delicate welds, the loving lines of its construction. Eventually, she does look to the side of her bed, watching Hawke chatter away.

“—and I told Trogdor, I told him, ‘If you eat that you’re going to be in the bathroom for hours regretting your existence’ but he still ate the weird fruit, and—”

“He’ll always eat it,” she croaks out, throat dry and voice hoarse, and Hawke—always Hawke to her, never Flower, not unless they’re in the field—drops the spanner in their hands and grabs at their mouth in surprise.

“Blue!” they shout, and reach forward on impulse, only stopping centimeters from holding her. They look almost pained as they pause before touching Blue, hands careful on her bandaged, bruised skin. “Blue, you’re _alive_ ,” they whisper, as if they can’t quite believe it.

“Yeah,” she whispers, reaching up weakly to pat Hawke’s hand. “You think you can find the call button? I’m starting to feel through the painkillers.”

They’re already pressing the button on the wall before she finishes her sentence.

* * *

 

i was born a few weeks after the accords—or a few weeks before? i can’t remember, and i feel like i should, you know? i mean, not like i was there, but i should know when i was born, right? right?

we had a calendar. i can’t remember it, sometimes, but sometimes i do and it’s really nice. because there were seasons, too, before it just went cold. the months and the seasons.

i saw one when the ADVENT found me, and i watched them burn it as they dragged me away—

* * *

 

Trogdor watches as Flower dances by herself in the room, knocking his knee against Gooby’s to grab her attention. “You think she knows there isn’t music playing?”

Gooby snorts, takes a drink from where she’s leaned against the bar, same as Trogdor. “Nah, but there’s music for her. Xenos took a lot from us, Trogdor,” and there’s sorrow in her voice. “Some of us more than others.”

He just nods. Flower seems happy, dancing by themself in the little area next to the bar. There’s a space cleared between the couches, in front of the little rec center. Their GREMLIN bobs along with them. They laugh, smiling brightly, and say to no one: “Come on, now, that’s not how the song goes, it’s like this—”

Trogdor finishes his drink. “You wanna get outta here, Gooby?”

She snorts. “Hell yeah. Let’s go bother Noddy.”

* * *

 

i built things for them, but i didn’t want to. i didn’t want to. they made me, they made my hands move and my brain think when i didn’t want it to, and it felt like i wasn’t even me anymore. so i guess i didn’t really build anything.

sometimes, i look at the ADVENT mechs and wonder if they still have my fingerprints on them.

but i didn’t want to make them. i didn’t. i never did. but they made me, and they stole my designs, and every time i look at them i think _what else did they take, too—?_

* * *

 

“I’ve seen flowers before,” they say, apropos of nothing, pulling their hand from the pocket of Noddy’s vest as if they didn’t just place a packet of salt in there while he was in the middle of reading his mail.

“Okay?” he says, confused, and they pat his pocket again.

“Be careful. The faeries don’t like salt, so you’ll be safe. Maybe the ethereals don’t like it, either...? Has anyone tried saltshot on them?”

Noddy just slowly shakes his head. “...Noooooo, I don’t think so. You can... certainly try that?”

“The flowers were real,” they continue, pulling their hand away and looking at the mail terminal. “They were orange.”

Their voice has gone distant, soft, as have their eyes, and Noddy decides a tactical retreat might be best. But not before...

> noddy182: blue. come get your crazy.  
> kittycain: what’ve they done now?  
> noddy182: talking about flowers again  
> kittycain: got it. omw

Noddy looks back up, and Flower’s just swaying in place, back and forth, eyes glazed.

“Let’s get you to Blue, huh?” he says, and Flower nods, faint smile growing on their face.

* * *

 

sometimes i remember one of them in the same room. ADVENT took me when i was young. i think they got in my brain. but i think i saw one of the ethereals once, they looked at me and said i was—

i can’t remember.

what were we talking about, blue?

**Author's Note:**

> find me at kaytewrites.tumblr.com/calebwidogast.tumblr.com, or on twitter @actualflower. kudos + comments are <3


End file.
